The Use Of Pathos In The Rockpile, By James Baldwin

In “Notes of a Native Son”, James Baldwin exceptionally conveys the burdens associated with being African American in New Jersey after the departure of his father. The relationship of father and son was negatively impacted by racial discrimination. Baldwin, for example, resisted frequent interactions with his father due to his hatred of the White American Society. However, after the loss of the father, Baldwin explored locations where a waitress denied him service due to the color of his skin, forcing him to convey his exasperation by throwing water on her. Consequently, sparking the same hatred he once despised in his father. As Baldwin matured, he was able to comprehend that his father's spiteful behavior sprung from the limitations blacks

The author uses tone and images throughout to compare and contrast the concepts of “black wealth” and a “hard life”. The author combines the use of images with blunt word combinations to make her point; for example, “you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet”. This image evokes the warmth of remembering a special community with the negative, have to use outdoor facilities. Another example of this combination of tone and imagery is “how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in Chicago barbecue in”. Again the author’s positive memory is of feeling fresh after her bath combined with a negative, the fact that it was a barbecue drum.

Contrary to the past attempt by elders to protect the youth, which involved scolding without reasoning, these two authors give their reader the naked truth when explaining the realities of this world. This naked truth is displayed when Coates tells his son “…the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements”(71). Coates doesn't avoid telling his son about the injustices that he may face nor does he avoid telling his son how this injustices will be justified. Baldwin illustrates his experience in New Jersey just as straightforward when he says “…I frightened the waitress who shortly appeared…I hated her for her white face and for her great, astounded, frightened eyes. I felt that if she found a black man so frightening I would make her fright worthwhile”(593). Baldwin uses powerful statements like “…I would make her fright worthwhile” in order to make sure his readers understand the intensity of this hatred. Both Coates and Baldwin paint vivid pictures with their explicit wording in order to be sure that the reader comprehends just how serious each matter

Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is

For example, in John Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” one can see how the two characters were taking drastically different paths but grew up in the same Harlem ghetto. The Harlem environment was stultifying. This was evident when Baldwin described Harlem as the “…lifeless elegance of hotels and apartments buildings, toward the vivid, killing streets of our childhood” (54). Baldwin described Harlem as streets that killed our childhood which spoke volume to the issue of how the surroundings affect the youth in that area. They were raised in a dead end neighborhood which led to many of their dead end lifestyles like Sonny’s. Michael Clark, author of "James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues: Childhood, Light and Art”, states that Harlem was a place where children had often been “smothered” (Clark 24) saying that some even escaped this deplorable surrounding though some just could not. John M. Reilly, author of “Sonny's Blues: James Baldwin's Image of Black Community”, stated that “…in the story…the two men have chosen different ways to cope with the menacing ghetto environment” (2). For the narrator he dealt with his issues by becoming a math teacher and working to bring the kids out of the dead end environment that Harlem had presented. While on the other hand, Sonny coped with his pain through music and unfortunately drugs. This clash did

Baldwin, however, describes his father as being a very black-like “African tribal chieftain” (64) who was proud of his heritage despite the chains it locked upon him. He is shown to be one with good intentions, but one who never achieved the positive outcome intended. His ultimate downfall was his paranoia such that “the disease of his mind allowed the disease of his body to destroy him” (66). Baldwin relates the story of a white teacher with good intentions and his father’s objection to her involvement in their lives because of his lack of trust for any white woman. His father’s paranoia even extended to Baldwin’s white high school friends. These friends, although they could be kind, “would do anything to keep a Negro down” (68), and they believed that the “best thing to do was to have as little to do with them as possible” (68). Thus, Baldwin leaves the reader with the image of his father as an unreasonable man who struggled to blockade white America from his life and the lives of his children to the greatest extent of his power. Baldwin then turns his story to focus on his own experience in the world his father loathed and on his realization that he was very much like his father.

James Baldwin’s short story gruesomely paints the picture of how racism and sexuality are linked. The story takes place during the civil rights movement in the United States (Gorman 119). During this time, African Americans were still being oppressed, and white people were angry that they were making progress in society. This often lead to brutal attacks and sometimes death. In the story, the narrator, Jesse, is having difficulty having sex with his wife and compares her to the black women that he has sex with. As the story progresses, the problem emerges with the killing of a black man who is dismembered by a white man right before young Jesse’s eyes. Instead of seeing this as a horrible experience, Jesse takes on the attitude of those around him. Through characterization, point of view, and symbolism, James Baldwin’s story, “Going to Meet the Man,” demonstrates the connection between sexuality, particularly masculinity, and racism.

For the sake of letting children stay innocent from the harsh treatments of the world for as long as possible, adults don’t speak of theses realities in the presence of children. Baldwin constructs a

In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues,” one of the most pertinent themes throughout the story is the contrast and duality of light and darkness. More specifically, the author explores this theme by using light and darkness to explain the characters coming to terms with their realities and the realities of many people who live in their community. The theme also is key in explaining the relationship between Sonny and the narrator. In this paper, I intend to explain the significance of the tension of identifying one’s reality in “Sonny’s Blues,” by exploring the many instances that Baldwin uses light and darkness to explore one’s reality.

Baldwin continues on and says that blacks were being oppressed everywhere. “…Negro girls who set upon a white girl in the subway because…she was stepping on their toes. Indeed she was, all over the nation” (73). Not only does this portray the ever growing tension felt among African Americans in a certain area, it expresses the tension felt across the nation. African Americans everywhere were still continuously looked down upon, causing agitation, which was the current social condition blacks and whites faced.

In paragraph three of James Baldwin's 'Stranger in the Village' (1955), he alludes to emotions that are significant, dealing with conflicts that arise in the Swiss village. Of these emotions are two, astonishment and outrage, which represent the relevant feelings of Baldwin, an American black man. These two emotions, for Baldwin's ancestors, create arguments about the 'Negro' and their rights to be considered 'human beings' (Baldwin 131). Baldwin, an American Negro, feels undeniable rage toward the village because of the misconception of his complexion, a misconception that denies Baldwin human credibility and allows him to be perceived as a 'living wonder' (129).

This book is full of stories of the men who descend into the mines, and their women and children who wait for them to come out safe at the end of each shift are the subject of a, poet Diane Gilliam Fisher’s collection, Kettle Bottom. Set in 1920–21, a period of violent and brutal act against miners known as the West Virginia Mine Wars, the topic of the poems in Kettle Bottom. The stories includes the miners, their children, and most importantly their wives who suffered the consequences of their husband’s deeds. In Kettle Bottom, Diane Gilliam Fisher probes the emotional truth of coal camp history, and then extracts it, holds its darkness in the light of her brilliant poetic lines. Racism, Blood sheds, economic injustice, inhumane way to treat

James Baldwin opens up the play with a white man named Lyle Britten standing over the Richard Henry. Lyle has killed Richard, and dumped his body in a field of weeds. Richard had return to the south just before his death for New York, while in the North he fell into drugs and needed to come home for a fresh start. There was a difference in the way up North boys and down South boys acted, although Richard was from the south, his manners toward whites suggested he had been born and raised in the north. Richard was unlike most African American of this time period; he was very into himself and wanted everyone else to know how proud he was. While back in the South Richard bragged about the white women he

It is obvious from the story and the historical period in which the story takes place that Jesse had grown up in an extremely racist society and experienced prejudice on a daily basis from the attitude that his father expresses toward the black race. Here, Baldwin shows how any person in any situation can become the victim of twisted family values and societal expectations. Baldwin combines attacks on black people during the civil rights era and the period of history to this story to allow the reader to understand what Jesse feels on the day his innocence and perception of race was no more. “The black body was on the ground, the head was caved in, one eye was torn out one ear was hanging. But one had to look carefully to realize this, for it was, now, merely, a black charred object on the black, charred ground.”

Baldwin reveals the major factors at stake when providing context. He states simply, “On the 29th of July...my father died. On the same day...his last child was born.” Ironically, the author’s tone lacks any hint of sorrow or solemnity, and he exhibits restraint of his emotions. He continues, “On the morning of the 3rd of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass.” The image of wilderness captures the chaos, while the image of smashed plate glass further adds to the violence of the atmosphere. Thus, Baldwin goes beyond simply recounting his father’s death. He goes compare his father’s life experiences with his own, to highlight how racial injustices shaped both their identities. He captures the surrounding atmosphere as one of “injustice”, “hatred”, and “anarchy”, yet keeps the same understated tone. He concludes with a reflective purpose statement to transition to the next part of his memoir: “When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in a new way, to be apprehensive of my own.”